This invention pertains to the art of printing and printing presses and more particularly to an improvement in a printing press having a new and improved device for supplying ink or other liquid to a coating cylinder.
Food packaging, cartons, containers, periodicals, newspapers, and other like items are commonly printed by means of flexographic or gravure roll printing presses. Materials used in some of these applications are constructed of multiple layers which are laminated using adhesives and coatings applied by gravure roll application. Devices in current use to supply ink or adhesive or coating to a coating cylinder in such a press or coater/laminator, or the like, typically have a metal body to which clamps are used to hold in place flexible thin blades which contact the surface of the coating cylinder over its entire length. With the length of the prior coating head device oriented along the long center line axis of the coating cylinder, the flexible blades form a liquid seal in the axial direction. At the ends of the device are seals cut to an appropriate shape and clamped at the end to form a liquid seal at each end of the device. The device is then pressed to the radial surface of the coating cylinder and a liquid seal is achieved. These prior devices have what are known generically in the art as a dual enclosed doctor blade system. A dual enclosed doctor blade system typically has two or more flexible blades, end seals and use a means to circulate liquid through the device. However, these prior inking devices typically use a print ink head having only a single zone internal cavity.
The principal object of the present invention is to provide a printing press using a coating head device having a dual enclosed doctor blade system having a three-zone internal cavity that improves the liquid flow to a coating cylinder to which liquid is supplied.